《How to Write Stories People Will Love》3. Find Inspiration
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If you're ever stumped for ideas on what to write, there are two things I recommend.
A story that I recently finished was inspired by a random thought I had while walking the dogs. They were sniffing intently at a bush, and I thought to myself, "I wonder what it's like to smell things as well as they do?" My brain then followed that rabbit down a hole and a story began forming. (Incidentally, this story is now on Wattpad! Look for My Mother Runs With Wolves on my profile. Website users can click on the External Link.)
Encourage your brain to think random thoughts. In any direction.
What would it be like to live on the moon? How high could you jump?
Do alligators really survive in the sewer? What do they live on?
How much time did Richard Adams spend staring at rabbits when he wrote Watership Down? Did his friends think he was crazy?
If teleporters ever get invented, I wonder if it'll get sabotaged by the airline and automobile industries?
Encouraging your mind to wander to pointless places sometimes sparks an idea for a story. My brain is always doing this on its own (I occasionally document these random thoughts in "My Hamster Wheel Brain" blog) and I'm often accused of spacing out. Some of these random thoughts give me ideas, and I'll scribble these ideas into a file for later reference.
Wandering thoughts usually aren't enough to come up with a story plot. The way you flesh out an idea is by asking what ifs. I'll take my previous wandering examples and apply what ifs to them...
What if they started colonizing the moon, and I volunteered? Would any of my friends and family go with me? What if I was in a relationship? What would happen to that?
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What if these sewer alligators were actually robots created by a corporation to build something secret underground?
What if Richard Adams made his story about cats instead of rabbits? What might have changed?
What if teleporters do get invented, but big-money lobbies get laws to be passed that make them illegal? What if a small group of scientists keeps working on one anyway, what would they do with it? Would a black market teleportation industry spring up?
Now these wandering thoughts have more meat on them, more potential to turn into stories.
If your brain doesn't wander like mine does, there are other ways. The What If Game can be powerful. Take an existing fairy tale. Then what-if the heck out of it. Here's an example: Peter Pan.
What if Peter Pan was actually a girl? She could be Petra Pan. With Lost Girls instead of Lost Boys.
What if this was set in space? Maybe Peter Pan used a jet pack instead of fairy dust. Would Tinkerbell be an alien?
What if Captain Hook was Peter's father?
What if Peter Pan was like Mad Max, and the Lost Boys ran Thunderdome?
What if Peter somehow got old? (This has already been done, in that Robin Williams movie, Hook.)
What if Tinkerbell was big and ugly like a troll, instead of tiny, fluttery and cute?
As you can see, there are countless directions you can go in! Some of them may have been done already, but there are so many possibilities, that chances are good you'll find something original.
Maintain a file or notebook for all your ideas. No matter how dumb or tiny the idea might seem, write it down. You don't have to flesh it out. Just record what you have. Twice now, I've thought of nothing but a title. No clue what the plot was, or who the characters might be. Just a story title I thought was cool. I wrote them down and set it aside for several months.
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Then later, as I recorded other ideas, I would peruse my previous ideas just for fun. Often these previous ideas will stir something in my creative space, and something will take root. Months later, I now have a complete short story, called "Sell Fish", and an in-progress novel from those two disembodied story titles I once wrote down.
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Telesma
An immortal being who has existed ever since the very first breath of creation decided to assume a human form and descend down to the mortal plane in the attempt to observe humans and experience their society first hand for his entertainment purposes. Unbeknownst to him, chaos has been stirring up both in the cosmos and in the earthen plane below which will bring about a catastrophe that will affect the fate of all of the planes of existence. With a tremendous amount of power far greater than what his physical body can handle, how will he fare himself with keeping his identity hidden all the while being right in the middle of the ensuing maelstrom?
8 149Wistful Eternity
everything worth having comes at a price
8 136Heart of Fire
Follow the adventures of Rita and her Guardian Hearts as they fight evil, attempt at flirting, and struggle through the normal issues young men and women do when they live in a world with corrupted gods, monsters, and overly flirtatious tentaticle girls.
8 126My little freshman
Eren is currently a senior at Sina high school and has his eyes set on a certain cute, raven haired freshman, but he's already taken. Eren will go to far lengths just to make Levi his, but how far will he take it? (There will be eventual Ereri)*I do not own any of the characters from Attack on titan or any of the art that is used. Credit goes to all artists*
8 133The Martial Magician
*Spoilers for Chapter 1* Wyatt loves everything magic. He's constantly reading light novels set in the magic/fantasy setting; he can't get enough of them. He then finds himself in another world- maybe he'll finally be able to use magic! Unfortunately, that isn't the genre of this novel... [This novel is being published simultaneously on Royal Road and Wattpad]
8 89The Dark Swordsman
Having died sealing away his enemy. Lost awakens over a thousand years later without any knowledge of how. Finding the world he used to know drastically different, he sets out to make sure the magical plague his enemy made is stopped. However, he finds himself in charge of a twelve year old and an elf that fancies himself a knight. All the while a mad king is out for his head, he uncovers he is not the only one that survived the Catastrophe. Note From Author: This is my first story. It's bound to be rough around the edges, but I would love for constructive criticism to help improve it for you to enjoy!
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